


Nothing and Nobody

by Azzy



Category: Tintin - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Immortality, M/M, Peril, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-07
Updated: 2012-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-29 03:23:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azzy/pseuds/Azzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>The first time he suspects it is when he first sees Tintin walk through a hail of bullets and emerge unscathed.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing and Nobody

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for [this prompt](http://tintin-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/1701.html?thread=79013#cmt79013) at the Tintin Kink Meme on Dreamwidth.

”Don't you dare,” Tintin breathes, sobs, into the airless space between them. It is dark where they are, dark and deadly as the gas hisses invisibly in at their feet. A trap, he remembers now; they walked right into it, no hope of rescue, crushing pain where the steel girder fell across his leg. He can feel the bones grind together when he tries to move, and bites back a gasp of agony. “Captain, don't you dare.”

They are already dead. Haddock is certain of it. The way out is shut, the key gone and Snowy's whines from outside have long since fallen silent; it is airtight, this chamber, and soundproof. No one will know when they stop breathing; it will be days before they are found. “Confound it, boy,” he says, his throat thick with grief, “I don't want to leave you, d'you hear?”

He's never wanted to leave, but it's always been the only way.

*

 _The first time he suspects it is when he first sees Tintin walk through a hail of bullets and emerge unscathed._

 _Tintin laughs it off, afterwards, with a familiar glint to his eye that Haddock is beginning to recognise. “It's nothing, Captain,” he says, smiling, brushing dust from his shirt. Snowy, also unhurt, cavorts around them both as the gunmen are led away by the local police. “Lucky they were such rotten shots.”_

 _“Nothing,” Haddock says disbelievingly, but lets the matter slide._

 _The thought nags at him from that point onwards. The gunmen were good, not just your average hired goons; well-trained mercenaries, men paid not to miss. There were two of them, they had_ machine guns _, and the lad walked between them without a scratch. Nobody does that, the Captain thinks, and an uneasy shiver runs the length of his spine. Nobody._

*

”You won't leave me,” Tintin says determinedly, but there is a catch to his voice and something drips onto Haddock's face, runs to the corner of his mouth; salt, the boy is crying and he can't even reach out, all the strength that was once in his body is gone and he screws his own eyes shut and curses his weakness viciously. “Captain, I, I have to tell you something before I -”

The lack of oxygen makes the floor seem as if it's moving, swaying like the deck of a ship. Oh, how he longs for the joy of the open sky and sea stretching before him, for the uncomplicated thrill of navigating stormy waters. “I know,” he slurs, and feels Tintin go still against him. “I know, lad, I know what you – I know – do _you_ know?” And he wants to add _Tintin, dear friend_ but his throat will no longer make the sound.

*

 _He is certain of it in the weeks before they go on that damned ill-fated trip to the Moon, when a severe head trauma mends itself overnight. “Remarkable,” says the surgeon with a chuckle. “He'll be right as rain in a week.”_

 _Haddock swears at him, stumbles out of Tintin's room – the first time he's left Tintin's side since the injury – and drinks himself into oblivion for the next three hours._

 _It frightens him. He'll admit that well enough; it frightens him, this thing that is no part of what he knows, what he believes in, but he's_ seen _it, men with black eyes and confusion and vomiting and God knows what else; and there is Tintin, the perfect sleeping beauty, everything hidden under the one small bandage. Tintin, the survivor, always right as rain, always unscathed, always a lucky escape. Tintin the friend._

 _It is envy and longing and fear and love that drive him back to Tintin's side, and when the anger bursts from him the next morning (when Tintin is awake, and talking) he can only be glad that the flimsy chair is the only thing to suffer._

*

”I can't die,” Tintin says with a catch in his voice; the truth, so simple, hidden for so long and Haddock can't even see his face. “Captain, you must listen to me -”

Haddock manages a grunt. The sound of Tintin's voice is all that remains; he can't hear the gas, can't feel the steel girders that trap his legs, and the acrid taste of bile and tears is gone. He thinks he hears Tintin say _I can save you, let me, let me_ , but Tintin surely can't -

“Yes,” Tintin whispers, braced over his body, eyes wide in the darkness. “I can,” and Haddock slips away dreaming of the ocean.

*

 _“What d'you think of immortality, eh?” he asks one evening at Marlinspike; testing the waters, so to speak. He's still frightened, but curiosity is winning, and this is Tintin. He can't protect the boy if he has no idea what he might be faced with._

 _Tintin tilts his head to one side, considering (or maybe pretending to). He's sitting cross-legged in a window seat, book in hand, and Snowy is at his feet, watching him closely for any signs that dinner might soon be forthcoming. “Immortality?” he asks. The sunlight catches long fair lashes, the freckles on his nose, the red mouth, and Haddock could lose his heart if he lets himself; it would take only a little imagination. “It sounds lonely, to me.”_

 _“Lonely?” Haddock repeats. “Blistering barnacles, lad, don't you want to live forever?”_

 _“No,” Tintin says, and he sounds lost. Snowy whines softly, and Haddock feels abruptly cut off from the two of them; curled there in the window, Tintin is not quite a statue but not quite living, Snowy a still figure at his feet. There could be a bleakness to Tintin's eyes, or it could be a trick of the light that shines around him. “Not forever.”_

*

Tintin is talking again.

Haddock breathes. It is surprisingly easy, so he carries on doing it while he listens.

“Of course there must have been a leak somewhere,” Tintin is saying; he sounds like he's pacing. Background noises are low and steady. A hospital? Three or more people in the room, as well. “Something like that, because we would both have been dead otherwise. C'mere, Snowy!” A warm weight leaves the Captain's lower abdomen. “And now, gentlemen, if you would mind waiting outside – I believe Captain Haddock is waking up.”

“Most abnormal, this sort of happenstance,” says Thomson or Thompson. He might have known they would be in across it, not that they had shown up when needed.

“To be precise, a happy normality,” the other adds, managing to sound both earnest and pompous at the same time.

“Goodbye, detectives,” says Tintin firmly, and then there is the creak of the door opening and closing; hesitant footsteps approach the bed, and Haddock cracks open one eye.

Tintin looks rather as Haddock feels; battered, bruised, a little shy. “Captain,” he says.

“What did you do?” Haddock asks; he can't not, and he fears the answer so much more than he ever feared a boy who lived forever.

“I kept you alive,” Tintin says, and Haddock knows then that he will never find out any more than that. “Until – until next time.”

Their eyes meet, and Haddock knows that deep down, nothing has changed between them; he will still follow Tintin to the ends of the earth, and Tintin will save him over and over and over until (perhaps) Haddock is old and grey and cannot go adventuring any more, and Tintin – if keeping one middle-aged unhealthy seadog alive has meant no great and terrible sacrifice, and Haddock isn't sure, cannot ask it yet – will move on.

No, nothing has changed, but he half-remembers the press of cold lips to his own, his lungs filling with precious air. Nothing has changed, but he knows now that Tintin is older than he looks.

Nothing has changed, nothing and everything all at once, and there are so many questions...

“Thundering typhoons, what does a man have to do for a drink in this blistering place?” he demands, just for starters, and watches as Tintin's smile fills with relief.


End file.
